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Talk:Ealstan
A shame this was written so sloppily. It's very valuable stuff on a very interesting character. One of my favorite stories from Derlavai, surprisingly enough, given that I'm no one's romance buff. Turtle Fan 04:44, May 21, 2010 (UTC) :I liked him in the first four books as well. I suspect that he was the first character HT introduced us to has much to do with it. I liked Enos Sr for similar reasons. TR 14:31, May 21, 2010 (UTC) ::Enos Sr I liked some of the time. He did set the tone of the twentieth century parts of TL-191 pretty well in giving us our first glimpse: A North America that everyone knows is militarized to the bone. Ealstan also set the tone well--people who live in a completely fantastic setting, and who take it for granted and live ordinary lives just the same, and whose ordinary lives are about to get swept up in momentous events. But Ealstan kept me consistently interested throughout the series, as did Vanai once they began their trist. It must have been more than that. ::Atvar was the first Worldwar character, and he was my favorite POV. He's also my favorite HT antagonist because he was so sympathetic. His first scene sort of set the tone, I guess, by showing the Race's underlying assumptions of interstellar imperialism. It just left me confused, though, till I'd seen more Lizard scenes farther into the book to put it in context. Then there were those parts which made even less sense when you got to know the Lizards, like that "kinsmale of the Emperor" horseshit. I really liked how they kept referring back to that first scene in the later books, and how Atvar's changing reactions to the hologram let us trace the shifts in the Lizard Weltanschaaung. ::The first human character was Larssen, I believe. I always liked him even though the later books were structured to push the reader to hate him. He had legitimate grievances against Bigamist Babs, against Yeager, against that horrible asshole Oscar, and probably against Groves. But HT was pretty good at characterization at that point, I can't imagine he would have pushed a character to be so antagonistic and have him come off looking so . . . protagonistic? . . . if there weren't something else going on. Getting credit for having set the standard for how the ordinary schlubs are supposed to act could qualify. ::I believe, after Hitler and the Spanish pilot, the first real POV in HW was Vaclav? In a few years we'll reconvene and see if we felt particularly attached to him. At this point I can say that I'm slightly less indifferent to him than I am to the others, because he actually has things like motivations and a character arc, after a fashion. The difference in my indifference is so slight that I wasn't even aware of it till just now, but I did find him the most memorable (or perhaps least forgettable) of the never-ending parade of front-line grunts. Turtle Fan 19:31, May 21, 2010 (UTC) :::Actually, it was Weinberg. I don't see a day getting attached to him, not unless he's willing to back up and say "maybe communism isn't that great." ::::God, he's so tedious. Dogmatists usually are, but he's got an added wrinkle to his tedium: From the comfort of citizenship in a democratic country, he whines about how he wishes Stalin ruled the world. Meanwhile we meet characters who live in terror of their lives because of him (as well as because of his totalitarian siamese twin), we see him attack Poland under false pretenses (I don't care if they are on the Nazis' side, I don't care if they are half-Nazis themselves, Stalin's attack was still unjust) and we see him make a mockery of Mongolian sovereignty and prop up a tyrannical mini-me so that even more people can have their lives ruined by politics. And that's just the first book, there are five more coming. God only knows what other horrors lie ahead. ::::If HT had brought his A-game to HW, I'd swear Weinberg was being set up for some sort of rude awakening. As it is . . . I'd have to be happy with Weinberg serving a purpose other than boning a comatose woman we haven't even heard of yet and thus obtaining the final victory. Turtle Fan 21:02, May 21, 2010 (UTC) :::Vaclav is far more interesting (which in the context of HW, is not that much), so I do see myself getting attached to him. Especially with his potential for becoming an anti-tank-gun-wielding badass. TR 19:43, May 21, 2010 (UTC) ::::Compared to, say, Reggie Bartlett or Ussmak or Jonathan Moss or Ludmila Gorbunova, Vaclav is nothing to write home about. Compared to Weinberg and McGill and Peggy and . . . and What's-His-Name, and What's-His-Name, and What's-His-Name, he has found ways to stand out. He's kind of like what you'd get if someone took one of your smallest Rockies and pushed it east into Nebraska. ::::And truth be told, I'm biased in favor of Czechs. I've known three or four in my day and they're all straight shooters and fun to be around besides. Turtle Fan 21:02, May 21, 2010 (UTC)